Knowledge is power distinguishing real and imagined things

"Between the ideal

And the reality

Between the motion

And the Act

Falls the shadow"

T.S. Elliot, The Hollow Men. 1925.

How do you distinguish between the real and the ideal?

"it is existence and reality that one wishes to comprehend."

Albert Einstein, 1934.

"Many real-world imperfections arise when experimentally performing a quantum information
processing task. These may arise either in the creation or measurement of a quantum state,
or in the manipulation of the state via some quantum process."

A Gilchrist, NK Langford, MA Nielsen - Physical Review A, 2005 - APS.

What is here?

Wake up to reality?

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

Attributed to Albert Einstein.

Reality	?	Ideal
existence		imagination
substance		image
actual		desired

"This study was designed to indicate the necessity for controlling the social-desirability factor in testing the twofold clinical hypothesis regarding discrepancy between real self and ideal self and to assess the relative influence of social desirability on personality questionnaires, rating scales, and Q sorts. The findings support the conclusion that social desirability enters into the three personality techniques to about the same extent."

"The influence of social desirability on discrepancy measures between real self and ideal self."
Douglas T. Kenny,
Journal of Consulting Psychology, Vol 20(4), August 1956, 315-318.

See an example of the above.

See also, Karen Horney.

Language, myth and meaning.

Ocatvio Paz argues in The Labyrinth of Solitude that humans are disturbers.

"A study of the great myths concerning the origins of man and the meaning of our presence on earth reveals that every culture. . . stems from the conviction that man the intruder has broken or violated the order of the universe."

When interpreting representations, ideology, metaphors, art and similes, the images must be closely aligned with the actual substance they represent so that these symbols recall authentic relationships in our minds.

Among the earliest evidence we have of a writer who distinguished between the observable and the abstract is Anaximander the Milesian, Greek who argued that the four elements of water, air, fire, and earth were not the prototypical substances from which all things emerged or were made.
[Anaximander, 610-546 BCE, Miletus, Ionia (Asia Minor).]

Image	Ties to	Substance
*idol*	*with*	*idea*
*seen*	and	*thought*
*picture*	to	*message*
*surface*	with	*meaning*
*affect*	and	*cognition*
Symbol	to	beliefs

Without some means of inquiry, or method of analysis, we are unable to distinguish the real from the fantasy, the actual from the merely formal. Take for example a mirage that embodies the appearance or form of water but not the substance or liquid material.

Dialectical tension: an example of the unity of opposite concepts.

A method is the application of a precise process in order to distinguish between the real and imagined events.

Real	contrasted	Imagined
exists	method	illusory
*substantial*	*means*	ephemeral
embodied	technique	intangible

What is a mirage as opposed to a rainbow, are they different or similar?

real world?

What is here?

What is here?

There is value determining meaning based on being able to distinguish among competing needs so that we may select the proper and effective responses to other people's situations.

maslow's hierarchy

Abraham Maslow, a social psychologist, who championed humanistic psychology also argued that there is a stacking up of competing and complementary needs common to all people. This concept was called Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Interpretations of Maslow, (2012).

"The integrated wholeness of the organism must be one of the foundation stones of motivation theory."

"Human needs arrange themselves in hierarchies of pre-potency. That is to say, the appearance of one need usually rests on the prior satisfaction of another, more pre-potent need. Man is a perpetually wanting animal. Also no need or drive can be treated as if it were isolated or discrete; every drive is related to the state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of other drives."

What Maslow actually wrote: A Theory of Human Motivation, (1943).

What is here?

certainty <==========================> uncertainty

greenhouse

Because our language, based on imagination, the use of symbols and expression in a tangible syntax and grammar can, if we are not careful trap us in a maze of fantasy, illusions, and mirages. That is not because we are stupid, but that through employing language to signify what our experiences mean, we are apt to stumble over the precise meaning of the words we use to evoke a mood, or to conjure an understanding of the things we describe. Octavio Paz has suggested that the individual seethes with desire for communion with others, yet paradoxically is all the more trapped alone in a labyrinth. That Labyrinth of Solitude, can be the dialogue we have in our own heads with the conversant parts of our minds and personas in an effort to make sense of the world.

Labyrinth | Paz's Other Works | An example | Authors

What is here?

The world is overwhelming. This is so because sense impressions of the universe and our surroundings overwhelm our capacity to explain all the experiences we encounter.

It is as if we have this wonderful means – a gift actually – of expressive abilities but we are unable to effectively use or we are unwilling to learn how to use this capability most effectively.

For example, in his diary for June 8, 1831, Robert Schumann wrote:

"It sometimes seems to me that my objective self wanted to separate itself completely from my subjective self, or as if I stood between my appearance and my actual being, between form and shadow."

Robert & Ellen Kaplan, The Art of the Infinite (NY: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 34.

Because?

What is here?

Because the distinctions between the actual and the imagined can be of such importance there are more pages on this web site dedicated to understanding how to approach this crucial divergence in perspectives.